Chapter 10 Summary: Mayhem at the Ministry

[Flying Ford Anglia]

No: HPFGUIDX 1364

Aberforth's Goat wrote:

"Molly (Mrs. Weasley) is quite a lady.  First she's harsh, then she's 
bear hugging.  She and Aurthur don't seem passionate (notwithstanding 
their erstwhile feats of procreation), but when Percy criticizes Dad, 
Molly goes ballistic.  She can be very sensitive, but she tosses Ron 
an outfit practically designed to torture fourteen-year-olds--without 
so much as a warning.  Very interesting.  Don't wizards have anything 
for menopause?"

******

I think Molly tries to compensate for Arthur's soft-heartedness by 
veering between 'good cop' and 'bad cop', while he tinkers with his 
battery collection and chuckles at the gnomes digging up the back 
garden (or puts the wizworld to rights at the MoM).  She puts up a 
pretence of his being in charge of the household ("wait til you 
father gets home!"), but we rarely see any evidence of that.  She is 
a very strong character, capable of love, support and - albeit 
through screaming at the rest of the family - guidance.

We've never seen Molly and Arthur being passionate with each other, 
but we've not seen much passion on display anywhere else either.  
When I was a child, I didn't need to see my parents ravaging each 
other to guess that they were a happy, loving couple and if I saw 
them kiss each other, my reaction was usually something 
like "Yeauuch!!"  Fortunately, they followed the 'not in front of the 
children' rule for their moments of passion.

As for the dress robe, I suppose Molly could have conjured up 
something more suitable for her No.6 son, but maybe she feels he 
needs to learn a lesson about the use of magic in same way that 
Muggle children should be taught the value of money.  If you give 
children everything on a plate, they'll grow up expecting everything 
to be done for them (like Dudley Dursley).  Apart from that 
possibility, JKR keeps reinforcing the fact that the Weasleys are 
poor, and I guess this is her way of illustrating that magic isn't a 
panacea.

Neil